Last Dance

[Mr. Hand]

The biggest change between then and now is how physical defenses were allowed to be then. You could hand check, bump cutters, body up post players, and fighting for rebounds was more literal. I watched some early 80's NBA videos, Jordan's rookie season, Dr. J's Philly team vs. Bird's Celtics, and several more. What really stood out was the sheer physical brutality of the game then.

Perimeter skill is far more important these days. There's more room to move, pass, and shoot. Teams have gotten smaller on average. Defenses can do little to stop that movement, and travel calls are like unicorns.

The game has changed dramatically. Most fans seem to like it better, but it's subjective. I think both styles have their appeal and their warts. As long as there are players who can create, innovate, and dominate I'd watch either way.

 

[Kenny11]

The defense was allowed to be more physical back then but the rotations sucked, the schemes sucked and guys couldn’t cover as much ground.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

The defense was allowed to be more physical back then but the rotations sucked, the schemes sucked and guys couldn’t cover as much ground.

And 2/5 of the guys on the court couldn’t score the ball on offense at any given time.

 

[navery12]

A nice low scoring game with great defense where the Celtics won 135-131

 

[superjohn]

Jordan misses his second season, comes back at the end of the year to singlehandey will his team to the playoffs then gets his minutes restriction lifted and goes to Boston Garden against 5 Hall of Famers and drops 49 and 63 points in game 1 and 2.

 

[HuskyHawk]

The Celtics play great defense. Marcus Smart is amazing.

When everyone realized the 3 point shot was 50% more valuable for a small decrease in shooting %, it changed the spacing. You have to guard people much further from the basket and cover more ground.

The game is just tougher now.

Stevens talks about this. He mentioned the value of guys who can make shots well beyond the line, Irving and Kemba were mentioned (before the switch it teams). I get it. I think things were as good in the 80s with the showtime Lakers running on every made or missed shot. The Celtics could beat you in any kind of game. Great stuff.

What I despised was the isolation, clear out game that came in between when the Bulls dominated. Whoever has the best one on one player wins. Awful basketball.

Part of me wonders what Kareem would do now. Could any of these guys stop him? I doubt it. Not without doubling him. The athleticism with size now is incredible. But these guys have never even faced a real back to the basket center in their lives. The art is all but lost.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

A great watch so far. Clear emphasis on Krause as the antagonist. I was too young to follow the Bulls dynasty but it’s amazing how Krause could create a 6 championship squad and be simultaneously hated by the city of Chicago.

 

[Scoe]

Turns out that pick in the 86 draft turned out to be Brad Sellers anyways, one pick away from Ron Harper, passing up on guys like Mark Price, John Salley, Dennis Rodman.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Turns out that pick in the 86 draft turned out to be Brad Sellers anyways, one pick away from Ron Harper, passing up on guys like Mark Price, John Salley, Dennis Rodman.

Used to really enjoy watching Harper play pre-injuries. Even with the Bulls at end of his career you knew he was limited physically but still played smart Bball. Jordan,Pipoen and Harper were a real tough trio to get your offense running.

 

[superjohn]

Stevens talks about this. He mentioned the value of guys who can make shots well beyond the line, Irving and Kemba were mentioned (before the switch it teams). I get it. I think things were as good in the 80s with the showtime Lakers running on every made or missed shot. The Celtics could beat you in any kind of game. Great stuff.

What I despised was the isolation, clear out game that came in between when the Bulls dominated. Whoever has the best one on one player wins. Awful basketball.

Part of me wonders what Kareem would do now. Could any of these guys stop him? I doubt it. Not without doubling him. The athleticism with size now is incredible. But these guys have never even faced a real back to the basket center in their lives. The art is all but lost.

I agree that was the worst stretch of NBA basketball and turned a lot of people off to the game.

Jordan would average 50 now if he wanted to. Kareem and the bigs from the 80's 90's would crush these guys. It's just a completely different game now. In some ways it's better and some ways worse. I love the current NBA but I miss the guard big man balance the league used to have. The importance of the three has kind of screwed things up.

 

[Scoe]

One thing not mentioned and I'm totally going by memory here, I recall that the Bulls were closing to dealing Pippen to the Celtics for the 3rd and 6th pick on the night of the 1997 draft, and MJ had said "if Scottie gets traded I will retire tonight". I remember this was actually talked about the night of that draft.

 

[kemba]

I always laugh when the people who say they don't like the nba then describe an nba that hasn't really existed since like 2002.

Doc was great, the 2 hours flew by, can't wait for next week.

 

[LIuconn]

Those 2 hours went by in 10 minutes

 

[Chin Diesel]

Enjoyed the first two episodes as setting the table for the remainder of the story. Episode 1 obviously was all MJ and episode 2 focused more on Scottie. Gotta figure episode 3 has a bunch on Phil.

Didn't like the way they made it seem MJ's jump shot was the final play of the championship game against Gtown. You can see in the background the clock showing :12 seconds remaining. Even though it was about MJ, you have to show the panicked errant pass by Gtown and Worthy getting the steal to seal the championship.

The story about the travelling coke heads and Peoria probably caused a spike in searches for that team's roster since MJ basically said the whole team was in the room and either with coke, weed or hookers.

 

[HCCForever]

Enjoyed the first two episodes as setting the table for the remainder of the story. Episode 1 obviously was all MJ and episode 2 focused more on Scottie. Gotta figure episode 3 has a bunch on Phil.

Didn't like the way they made it seem MJ's jump shot was the final play of the championship game against Gtown. You can see in the background the clock showing :12 seconds remaining. Even though it was about MJ, you have to show the panicked errant pass by Gtown and Worthy getting the steal to seal the championship.

The story about the travelling coke heads and Peoria probably caused a spike in searches for that team's roster since MJ basically said the whole team was in the room and either with coke, weed or hookers.

I liked the fact that they didn't show Freddie Brown throwing the ball to Worthy. I can live with not telling the complete story of that championship game.

The part that made me laugh was when Burrell wanted to hug Jordan after the championship in Paris since it would be Scott's first championship. Jordan kept saying that the championship didn't count so Burrell said he would hug Jordan's sons instead. Some people ripped Jordan for that but for an ultra competitive guy like Jordan that must be what life is all about.

 

[dvegas]

Dom Amore: Don’t get the wrong idea, UConn’s Scott Burrell reaped benefits from Michael Jordan’s ‘Last Dance’

On the eve of the season, the Warriors traded Scott Burrell to Chicago. After years of playing in vain against Michael Jordan, Burrell now was his teammate. Welcome aboard? On the first day of prac…

www.courant.com

 

[Chin Diesel]

I liked the fact that they didn't show Freddie Brown throwing the ball to Worthy. I can live with not telling the complete story of that championship game.

The part that made me laugh was when Burrell wanted to hug Jordan after the championship in Paris since it would be Scott's first championship. Jordan kept saying that the championship didn't count so Burrell said he would hug Jordan's sons instead. Some people ripped Jordan for that but for an ultra competitive guy like Jordan that must be what life is all about.

Dom Amore: Don’t get the wrong idea, UConn’s Scott Burrell reaped benefits from Michael Jordan’s ‘Last Dance’

On the eve of the season, the Warriors traded Scott Burrell to Chicago. After years of playing in vain against Michael Jordan, Burrell now was his teammate. Welcome aboard? On the first day of prac…

www.courant.com

I viewed the interactions with Burrell more of a right of passage and earn your keep type comment. That was Scott's first season with the Bulls and he didn't come in with a championship pedigree. Scott had been a decent NBA player and MJ wanted to let him know he hadn't done jack yet with the Bulls.

 

[OldBosd]

Part of me wonders what Kareem would do now. Could any of these guys stop him? I doubt it. Not without doubling him. The athleticism with size now is incredible. But these guys have never even faced a real back to the basket center in their lives. The art is all but lost.

Or Hakeem or McHale.

At his best McHale shot 60% for the season in 1987 (and was injured - he had a healthy stretch of 6 weeks over 70%!!!) while scoring 26 points game.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Or Hakeem or McHale.

At his best McHale shot 60% for the season in 1987 (and was injured - he had a healthy stretch of 6 weeks over 70%!!!) while scoring 26 points game.

Or go back to Wilt or a healthy Walton. I think the game will adjust again. Currently "inside scoring" is coming from guards getting to the rim due to "spacing". But it's not really the same thing.

 

[3RingsCT]

A great watch so far. Clear emphasis on Krause as the antagonist. I was too young to follow the Bulls dynasty but it’s amazing how Krause could create a 6 championship squad and be simultaneously hated by the city of Chicago.

Yeah, it’s not that simple...

Pippen really made Kraus the enemy because of his contract....was the 122nd highest paid player in the league, and was arguably top 5 in the NBA at the time...Pippen wanted a payday and was leaving, no matter

Phil Jackson was on his way out. Never believed in staying past 7 years as he believed your message would be stale.

Jordan was burnt out and said he would never play without Phil coaching.

Rodman was bench player towards the end of the 97-98 season

The others were just role players. They couldn’t win without Jordan and Pippen.

Reinsdorf is on record as saying “as long as we have Jordan, we have to find a way to win”. The problem was, the supporting cast and coach were all on their way out for many different reasons.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

There might have been a point in time when this was an accurate summary of the NBA but it hasn’t been in quite a few years. You might be surprised.

From a low in 05, assists per game has gotten back to early 80's level with the scoring.

 

[CL82]

Jordan misses his second season, comes back at the end of the year to singlehandey will his team to the playoffs then gets his minutes restriction lifted and goes to Boston Garden against 5 Hall of Famers and drops 49 and 63 points in game 1 and 2.

Fascinating moment in time, isn't it? Even then you could see that it was changing of the guard. Larry Bird had a great quote about Jordan that summed it up. “He is the most exciting, awesome player in the game today. I think it’s just God disguised as Michael Jordan.”

 

[Chin Diesel]

Or Hakeem or McHale.

At his best McHale shot 60% for the season in 1987 (and was injured - he had a healthy stretch of 6 weeks over 70%!!!) while scoring 26 points game.

I think Kareem and Hakeem had games that translate well regardless of style of play because they were quick and athletic and could cover a bunch of space defensively and their offense was good out to 20' with the sky hook or dream shake. Plus they could run the court all day.

McHale, in today's game, would take his orangutan arms and behind the head jump shot and live at the top of the 3 point line banging 3's all day. His back to the basket dipsey do's and footwork would be lost because of the speed of double teams. But I feel confident he could have practiced and hits 3's all day. And no one could block or disrupt that jump shot. His bigger liability would be on defense as he was pretty bad with lateral quickness.

 

[3RingsCT]

Fascinating moment in time, isn't it? Even then you could see that it changing of the guard. Larry Bird had a great quote about Jordan that summed it up. “He is the most exciting, awesome player in the game today. I think it’s just God disguised as Michael Jordan.”

1986 Celtics.....ugliest team in the history of pro Sports

 

[Chin Diesel]

Fascinating moment in time, isn't it? Even then you could see that it changing of the guard. Larry Bird had a great quote about Jordan that summed it up. “He is the most exciting, awesome player in the game today. I think it’s just God disguised as Michael Jordan.”

Changing of the guard, yes, but MJ still had to lose to the Celtics. Celtics would beat the Pistons. Pistons then beat Bulls and Celtics and then the Bulls were able to overtake the Pistons. I am curious how much love or dismissiveness the Last Dance gives the Bulls needing to overcome the Pistons as part of the journey to the top.

 

[Lefty2one]

Part of me wonders what Kareem would do now. Could any of these guys stop him? I doubt it. Not without doubling him. The athleticism with size now is incredible. But these guys have never even faced a real back to the basket center in their lives. The art is all but lost.

Because that art isn't winning championships and if you're a player it's not guaranteed to get you paid. The last All-NBA big man to win a championship was Duncan in 2013. If I'm a 6'11 young player I'm not spending a whole lot of time on my back-to-the-basket game, I'm spending it shooting threes and working on my pick and roll/pop game.

The problem for bigs is the current rules and zone defense and the bevy of defensive options it opens up for coaches. I love 80/90s NBA and romanticize the hell out of it but the rule changes screwed up everything. They set the wheels in motion to marginalize big men and increase the value of guards. A team now can throw weakside help pre-catch at any big man and you've pretty much neutralized him, if you want to. The old illegal defense rules were bizarre and complicated but they did favor big men. Kareem would still put up pretty big numbers in this era but I'm not sure he'd win a championship.

 

[Lefty2one]

Changing of the guard, yes, but MJ still had to lose to the Celtics. Celtics would beat the Pistons. Pistons then beat Bulls and Celtics and then the Bulls were able to overtake the Pistons. I am curious how much love or dismissiveness the Last Dance gives the Bulls needing to overcome the Pistons as part of the journey to the top.

Based on the previews for next week's two episodes they're going to spend a lot of time on it.

 

[mauconnfan]

1986 Celtics.....ugliest team in the history of pro Sports

Prettiest on the court and how they played the game though.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Based on the previews for next week's two episodes they're going to spend a lot of time on it.

Didn't see the previews for next week. Thanks.

I did the game plan going forward is 4 hours every Sunday night. 7-9 is the previous week's two episodes and 9-11 are the two new episodes each week.

 

[superjohn]

Fascinating moment in time, isn't it? Even then you could see that it was changing of the guard. Larry Bird had a great quote about Jordan that summed it up. “He is the most exciting, awesome player in the game today. I think it’s just God disguised as Michael Jordan.”

To make what Jordan did even more incredible, that 85-86 Celtics team is arguably the best NBA team ever along with the 95-96 Bulls.